Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 3, 1992 TAG: 9203030253
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: Medium
"Oh, they're good, if you know how to fix `em," said Gloria Ramsey, a customer. "I've been eating muskrat all my life. It's a different taste. I love it!"
Parboiled, pan-fried and sauteed with onions and gravy, muskrats are a hit with the restaurant's patrons. Muskrat dinners, complete with mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese and hush puppies, are selling quite well. Restaurant owner Bobby Edwards also sells the rodents frozen and whole - about 50 a week - for $3.99 each.
If the thought of eating furry rodents is somewhat tough to stomach, Edwards suggests thinking of muskrats as marsh rabbits or English chicken, two aliases for the meat.
"Once you change that name around, I guess it doesn't sound so bad," he said.
Responding to his customers' appetite for muskrat, Edwards searched for more than two years before he found a commercial supplier. He won't reveal where he gets the muskrats - which come to his restaurant skinned and cleaned - but said they come from another state.
"Almost everybody in Smithfield eats them," said Lloyd Benton, a truck driver for Smithfield Packing. "I haven't tried it. I probably won't be trying it either. I just don't like the name."
An average-sized muskrat weighs between 2 and 3 pounds, Edwards said. The meat, when cooked, is a dark chocolate color. Like most wild game, it's a little stringy. Some muskrat connoisseurs compare the taste to that of squirrel, rabbit or venison. But Edwards said it has a taste all its own. And it's meatier and leaner than most other small game.
Because the legal trapping season for muskrats extends only through mid-March, muskrat dinners at Edwards' restaurant on Virginia 10 won't be on the menu much longer.
Ramsey isn't happy about that.
"I live in Suffolk, and it's hard to find there," she said. "It's kind of a wild taste, but it's delicious. Try it. You'll like it."
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.